Profile | New IOC president Kirsty Coventry faces complex geopolitics and gender minefield
China offers its support to first woman to lead the Olympic Movement, but she will arrive to a challenging in-tray
Kirsty Coventry may soon discover that winning the presidency of the International Olympic Committee was the easy bit.
Russia, Donald Trump and the largely unpredictable nature of the world’s politics, gender equality and sustainability all sit among the thorny issues she will need to tackle in the coming weeks, months and years.
The youngest person to hold the most powerful position in world sport, the 41-year-old Zimbabwean is also the first woman to lead the Olympic Movement and the first from Africa.
Her elevation to the post on Thursday was quickly welcomed by China and Russia, with Gao Zhidan, director of the General Administration of Sport of China and president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, among the earliest to congratulate her.
In his letter, Gao was reported to have told the two-time Olympic swimming champion that China was “willing to further consolidate and deepen its strategic partnership with the [IOC] and make China’s contribution to promoting the reform and development of the Olympic movement”.
Coventry is no stranger to the country. She successfully defended her Olympic 200 metres backstroke title in Beijing, and picked up three silvers at those 2008 Games, in the 100m backstroke and the 200m and 400m medley.